The African Queen
by meilin-m
Summary: Clive Jones reflects on his relationship with Francine Jones, and confronts a threat aboard the Valiant during the Year that Wasn't. Part of the Valiant series.


Clive Jones leaned on his mop handle and watched his ex-wife walk down the Valiant's corridor, her back firm and her gaze proud though her arms were laden with laundry. She wore a simple maid's uniform, and he thought she had never been more beautiful.

What exactly had led him away from her? How could he have left her? He could no longer remember.

When he first saw Francine Afua, he was 20. He thought, "Now there's a posh bird. No, more than a posh bird." She was walking past his table in the library in a knot of friends, books in her arms, her head held high and an amused, regal expression on her face.

"Like a queen," he thought. "She looks like a queen, gracing us with her presence. And she is. My God, she is." He was awestruck, heartsick, and just this side of obsessed, badgering friends into helping him find out her name, where she studied, who she was, how to get introduced.

Months later as they lay naked in his narrow bed, still panting and sweaty, he told her this. "A queen?" she laughed, crinkling her nose. "Really?" She rolled over, folding her arms on his chest and resting her chin atop them. "My gran always told us girls we should hold our heads up, we were descended from queens." She laughed again, her fine eyes sparkling. "My mum would say Gran was a queen all right, the Queen of the Accra Fish Market."

He always called her Queenie after that, but only when there was no one else listening but her.

The pet name turned to acid in his mouth as they drifted apart in the decades that followed. "Gracing us with the presence?" he'd say when she'd come home late from work. "Oh, don't give me the royal glare, Queenie. It doesn't work on me."

When Francine found out about Annalise, her fury radiated out to the tips of her hair. A flood of curses would renew whenever Annalise's name was even mentioned, months after she and Clive had separated. "Showing our roots in the fish market monarchy, aren't we!" he'd yelled back once.

His oldest girl, Martha, had begged him. Couldn't he leave Annalise home just once in a while for family events?

No, he could not.

(Martha. So bright, so capable. So beautiful. A princess to her mother's queen--proud but never haughty, a princess with the common touch. He loved her so much. How he regretted putting her in the middle like that now.)

Then the mysterious new boyfriend had appeared on Martha's arm. Francine overcame her hatred of Annalise on Clive's message machine enough to ring him up. A woman from the Ministry of Defence had come to her, a Miss Dexter. The boyfriend was dangerous, Martha didn't understand who or what he was, he'd blinded her somehow and was using her. Clive had to come and listen to what Miss Dexter had to say, and then they had to figure out how to save Martha.

Tish, his youngest girl, didn't like the new boyfriend, either. "Dad," she'd said, "Weird things happen around him! He scares me. I think they're right, I think he's dangerous. I'm worried. And Dad--I think she loves him."

Now they knew what dangerous really was.

Clive's attention snapped back to the present. Francine was threading her way towards him through the armed men lounging in groups of three and four in the corridor. Her face was neutral, but her eyes were smiling at him.

An arm snaked out and caught her by the elbow. She stumbled, laundry went everywhere, and the men laughed.

Francine went down on her hands and knees and began calmly picking up the clothing. One of the men--the one who'd grabbed her, thought Clive--put himself off to one side. "View's pretty good over here, guys," he grinned, peering obviously down the front of Francine's uniform as she knelt. The man moved behind her. "Not bad from here either!" Clive straightened, gripping his mop.

Francine glared up at the men as she finished gathering up her load and stood. "I'll thank you to keep your hands and your eyes to yourself."

The men all hooted and her persecutor stepped in front of her. "You know what we call you? The African Queen." He looked around at his buddies as they guffawed and nodded. "You think you're something, don't you? Mother of the great Martha Jones. You think that makes you better." He knocked the laundry basket out of her arms again. "You know what the Master's going to do when he gets hold of your daughter? huh?" Francine didn't answer, but her head stayed high and her glare never wavered. "Maybe we should give you a little preview, your majesty." He put his fingers just inside her collar.

And a mop handle came down against his throat, yanking him back away from Francine. A roar went up from the men, but no one moved as Clive throttled his ex-wife's attacker until he sank to the floor unconscious. "Come on, you fucks!" Clive raged as they began to fan out around him, Francine behind him. "Come on!"

"That's enough!" rapped a sharp voice. He turned to see a blonde woman with a large gun dangling at her side.

The men all backed down, mumbling variations on "Yes, Miss Dexter."

She turned to Francine. "Off with you." Francine gave Clive a look of love mixed with fearful concern, Shae Dexter a look of pure hate, and moved off, clutching the laundry basket. "You. And you," she said, indicating Clive and one of the men. "With me."

Clive sighed, put down his mop and obediently fell in between Dexter and the guard as she headed for the conference room and their Master. "You know he won't kill you, or your wife, thanks to your daughter," she said over her shoulder. "But you won't like what's about to happen. I hope you find she's worth it."

Oh, she's worth it, thought Clive, the young queen in his bed blending in his mind with the queen in the maid's uniform. My God, she was worth it.


End file.
